Two “Zoom” Conversations on the Radicalism of the American Revolution in March

02/22/2021
BATON ROUGE – The Eric Voegelin Institute announces a series of lecture-discussions with prominent scholars this spring on the theme, “American Revolution: Radical or Conservative?”  Harvey C Mansfield Jr. of Harvard speaks on “The Right of Revolution Today” on Tuesday, March 2, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. William B. Allen, emeritus from Michigan State University, will discuss “Proclaiming Emancipation: How Washington and Lincoln Prepared the End of Slavery in America” on Tuesday, March 23, from 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.  Both lectures will be held via Zoom and are free to the public. Please visit www.lsu.edu/voegelin/events-videos to register.

Mansfield is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Harvard, where he has taught for more than 50 years and chaired its Government Department.  He has translated books by, and written books about, Machiavelli and Tocqueville, as well as books on liberalism, constitutionalism, and manliness; this lecture revisits his essay “The Right of Revolution” from The Spirit of Liberalism. Mansfield received the National Humanities Medal in 2004, served as the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Jefferson Lecturer in 2007, and has held fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and NEH.

Allen is dean emeritus of James Madison College and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Michigan State. He has served as both member and chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and as a Kellogg National Fellow, a Fulbright Fellow, a visiting fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University and the Matthew J. Ryan Center at Villanova University, and a visiting scholar at the University of Colorado. Allen edited “George Washington: A Collection” and authored “George Washington: America’s First Progressive,” “Rethinking Uncle Tom: The Political Philosophy of H.B. Stowe” and numerous other books and essays, including a series of lectures on The Federalist first delivered in Baton Rouge.

“In this moment of political uncertainty and upheaval, it helps to remember that our founders, whom we look back on as old men, were revolutionaries in their youth, and that our country, though now long-established, launched a project of social transformation,” said James Stoner, director of the Voegelin Institute and host for the discussions. “We’re privileged to have two incisive students of the political theory of the American founding to speak to topics of renewed interest in our own time.” 

The Eric Voegelin Institute is named for one of LSU’s original Boyd Professors and a scholar of international recognition and acclaim.  A humanities and social sciences research institute in the Department of Political Science, its primary activities involve scholarship, lectures, conferences, and teaching based on the ideas and questions that animated Eric Voegelin’s thought.

 

 

 

Contact James Stoner
Eric Voegelin Institute 
225-578-2538 
poston@lsu.edu 

or 

Ernie Ballard
LSU Media Relations
225-578-5685
eballa1@lsu.edu